Explorer

"Greetings Kleborn! Well met! It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Come, sit. Visit with us. I'm just discovering what my friends have been up to these last 6 weeks, as I have been away for a bit. I'm sure it make for excellent stories!"

Robhuud is keen to learn of the others' adventures in his absence, as well as what can be expected in the coming hours and days. He is exceedingly pleased to be sitting among others, drinking a concocted blend of mead and ale, having already consumed a light meal of vegetables, a half potato, and a piece of fish.

" 'Kleborn The Wolf!' A splendid name indeed! Have you seen much adventure? Do you like it?"

Robhuud lets his eagerness get a bit of the better of him for a moment. He laughs earnestly and deeply. Pleased indeed, he is, to be among friends.

Defender of Oerth

Osthelerin smiles, and says:"Indeed, friend, we have many stories to tell you! Kleborn, you might find this amusing as well!"

and with that, Osthelerin proceeds to relate the events of the last 6 weeks, using many hand gestures and dramatic flourishes. The whole "performance" takes about 30 minutes to relate.

GM:

You guys can read the campaign logs and "catch up," if you haven't already done so. It's all in this thread, even back before the last six weeks. The whole campaign thus far is spelled out with great detail.

Villager

Kleborn realizes that this group is what he is looking for, and that he will undoubtedly find adventure with them. He tells the group, "It is a pleasure to meet you all. I appreciate you telling me about the events you have faced over these last 6 weeks. I would very much like to join your group. I think I could be of use."

Defender of Oerth

After all of this has transpired, the bald Eryptian man finally says: "I am Del Tan Rah, priest of Rah, the Lord of Light; I am his humble servant, and loyal soldier. I must confess that I have spent the last 30 seconds or so studying you, under the guidance of Rah's light; and that light has revealed to me that you are no evildoer, and bear us no ill will, and therefore, I welcome you as a friend."

Osprey leans forward, and shakes Kleborn's hand. "Welcome to the group, then, Mr. Wolf. There are many more adventures to come, and if your blade is true and does not falter, great rewards shall be yours. Indeed, great rewards await us all, at the other end of this bloody business. The Cult of Tharizdun must not be allowed to re-awaken. And his followers must not be allowed to re-awaken the elemental lords of evil. The village and the moathouse are but the tip of the iceberg. I suspect the ruined temple holds much more than a few Hobgoblins; the Hobgoblins are likely minions or pawns of a greater evil. But first things first; we should prepare to explore the village of Nulb. Just because the place is abandoned and in ruins doesn't mean that we should ignore it, nor neglect giving it a thorough examination."

Explorer

Osprey leans forward, and shakes Kleborn's hand. "Welcome to the group, then, Mr. Wolf. There are many more adventures to come, and if your blade is true and does not falter, great rewards shall be yours. Indeed, great rewards await us all, at the other end of this bloody business. The Cult of Tharizdun must not be allowed to re-awaken. And his followers must not be allowed to re-awaken the elemental lords of evil. The village and the moathouse are but the tip of the iceberg. I suspect the ruined temple holds much more than a few Hobgoblins; the Hobgoblins are likely minions or pawns of a greater evil. But first things first; we should prepare to explore the village of Nulb. Just because the place is abandoned and in ruins doesn't mean that we should ignore it, nor neglect giving it a thorough examination."

Villager

Defender of Oerth

This is an organizational post, intended to give us a methodology by which we can move this campaign thread forward, despite its recent sluggish nature.

GM:

Ok, folks, here's what we're going to do, to speed things along.

As you all know, this campaign was (and still is) intended for my 10 year old son, but since his attention wanders during roleplay, I have set it up to where we can do the roleplaying parts online, here at ENWorld, and save the battles for him, on the tabletop at home.

Ok, so with me being the DM, I have 3 people playing on ENWorld:

Aust Thale (playing Robhuud The Quick)

Sylvar B. (Playing Mavet, and Trang)

RedRaider (Playing Kleborn The Wolf, and Prince Derrith)

That means that I am playing the roles of:

Osprey, Del Tan, Jonwaine, and Teedi.

Since the ENWorld responses have been slow, I have decided to use the following methodology:

I will post something, and the characters that I am running will make some sort of decision.

The first ENWorld player to respond will speak for everyone else; For example, if I post:

"Osprey and Jonwaine decide to go South. Does the party follow?"

If Kleborn responds and says, "Kleborn & Derrith follow, heading South." then I will assume that Mavet, Trang, and Robhuud are following, also.

That way, we can move things along, even if everyone isn't responding all the time.

When I ask for specific things (such as die rolls), if I don't get a response within 48 hours, I will make the roll (or the decision) myself, and move on.

Defender of Oerth

Ok, so, just as I was preparing to start up the Grey Cloaks again, the Myth-Weavers site crashed, and we lost Kleborn's stats. That has now been rectified. I restored his stats onto a Google Docs document, that I shared with RedRaider, so that he can update it and make changes as he sees fit. Now that Kleborn has his stats back, we can get on with the mission.

As you may recall, we were about to check out the abandoned village of Nulb. If you will refer to the quote below, you can teleport there from Rufus & Burne's keep:

The Dungeon Master said:

Patchwall 10, CY 963: (10 Days Ago; today is Patchwall 22nd.)Burne stops the party as they are about to depart this morning; as a reward for rooting out the cultists in his town, Burne shares a secret with the party; Burne, a powerful wizard in his own right, is the apprentice of a powerful Arch Mage by the name of Bardulok The Faithful, who lives nearby in the city of Verbobonc. Bardulok has created 4 permanent Teleportation Circles for Burne, in a special chamber inside Burne's fortress; one of which goes to the common room of the Greyhawk Mage Guild, another which goes to the common room of the Verbobonc Mage Guild, and the last two of which go to places that Burne felt he might need to return to one day: The Great Hall of the Moathouse, and the northern stretch of road that leads to the hamlet of Nulb (about 300 yards north-northwest of the main bridge.)

Burne says that the party can make use of the Moathouse and Nulb circles for free, virtually anytime they wish, because their actions serve the good of the town. He says that the other two circles may be used at a cost of 100 gp. per person, per trip. All trips through the circles are one-way, i.e., there are no circles at the destination areas that permit a return trip. All of the circles are keyed to the voices of either Bardulok or Burne, so one of the wizards must be present for the circles to be used. Unlike the standard Teleportation Circle spell, simply standing on one of the circles is not enough to activate it; a command word must be spoken by a keyed voice (either Bardulok or Burne.)

The party packs up and marches over to Burne's keep. They knock at the gate; after a moment or two, the guard (after looking through the peephole to see who it is) raises the portcullis and opens the doors, allowing the party inside. After a brief exchange of pleasantries with Burne, the party steps onto the pad, and Burne utters the command word; the party is whisked instantly away, appearing outside the Northern boundary of Nulb, in a small copse of trees within a stone's throw of the main road into town.

Gentlemen, I'd like to know your marching order. I am assuming that you march in ranks of two. If you'd like to change that, please state your intention to do so. Otherwise, going by two's, I'm assuming Osprey and Mavet in front, second row Jonwaine and Teedi. Who's in the third row? (Del Tan and Robhuud?) Who's on rear guard? (Trang and Derrith?) Kleborn as the Caboose? [Small joke, Cabooses are red, and Kleborn has red hair! LOL!] ...Hmmm.... Perhaps ranks of 3, then, since there are now 9 of you? Let me know...

Defender of Oerth

Ok, the party has decided the marching order, as per the Facebook OOC Chat thread. The current marching order is:

​

The white area is a rough, brown, muddy, dirt road.

The grey area is gravel (a primitive form of a road shoulder)

The green area is the forest; it is of light density.

OOC:

An overview of the village:

​

KEY:

1. Entrance to the village; After crossing a small, foot bridge, you are in the village limits of Nulb. The first building that doesn't look like a residential dwelling has a sign that says, "Waterside Hostel." Like all the other structures in this abandoned village, it looks to be badly dilapidated, and in danger of collapse.

2. Village Center; in the center of the village, there is an old Herbalist Shop, and old Blacksmith Stall, and an old General Store. These buildings have seen better days.

3. The Docks; four boats still sit at anchor, although time has taken its toll. There is a canoe that is about 90% submerged, and two rowboats which have suffered a similar fate. The largest vessel here is an old riverboat, which is about half submerged, which looks as if it ran aground long ago. The riverboat is about 40 feet long, and 10 feet wide.

Everyone: You are now on the far side of the footbridge; you have not yet crossed it. What do you do? Are there any sections of the village you'd like to explore in detail?

Explorer

"Right. Let's be about this, mates. I say we start at the village center and work our way out each arm, looking through the structures and scouting the area. First we check out the shops: the Blacksmith Stall, the old Herbalist Shop, and the General Store, in that order. From there, we work our way back north to the docs and the building near it. Then we cross the field due west back to the hostel. Then back to the center of town, perhaps taking a break before we move southeast and southwest to investigate the rest of the town. Most buildings will receive a moderate review; we don't want to advertise our presence, but we need to examine for anything out of the ordinary, interesting items, clues about this place, and above all, any potential adversaries we may encounter. At all times we need to be reasonably sure we have an unobstructed way out of here. I can alarm locations that we don't want disturbed after we leave it."

OOC:

An overview of the village:

​

KEY:1. Entrance to the village; After crossing a small, foot bridge, you are in the village limits of Nulb. The first building that doesn't look like a residential dwelling has a sign that says, "Waterside Hostel." Like all the other structures in this abandoned village, it looks to be badly dilapidated, and in danger of collapse.2. Village Center; in the center of the village, there is an old Herbalist Shop, and old Blacksmith Stall, and an old General Store. These buildings have seen better days.3. The Docks; four boats still sit at anchor, although time has taken its toll. There is a canoe that is about 90% submerged, and two rowboats which have suffered a similar fate. The largest vessel here is an old riverboat, which is about half submerged, which looks as if it ran aground long ago. The riverboat is about 40 feet long, and 10 feet wide.

Villager

Defender of Oerth

The party met in real-time at my mother's house, and resolved the search of the village. Among the abandoned buildings, the party discovered an Ogre Magi, an Otyugh, an advanced Otyugh, two Goblins, and 5 Wraiths! The party emerged victorious in all of these conflicts, although there are still a few buildings left on the "need-to-explore" list, including the Hostel. Here are a few pics from the session, all taken of the Wraith battle, which occurred at the marina.

Defender of Oerth

DM Note: I'm posting this in order to move the game along, it's been too-long stagnant. We will go ahead and do the combat online, instead of waiting to resolve it in-person.

As the party is walking back toward the Northern end of town to check out the Hostel, a screaming and shouting can be heard coming from that very building! The shouting voice is that of an angry, adult male. "Betrayer!" you hear it say, "I trusted you with my life, and look what I've got to show for it!"

The party bursts into the front foyer of the Hostel, kicking down the double doors, and rushing forward en masse. You are faced with a man, who appears to be a horribly disfigured, Human Cleric, wielding Quarterstaff and Shield, facing off against a Ghostly Apparition, dual-wielding wispy, ethereal, short blades.

The Ghostly Figure says, "Lareth, you always were a fool. And weak, as well. You can't even face me alone, you have to attack me with your petty minions!" obviously referring to the party.

The figure glows brightly, as it invokes a special power. "Let's just see if we can't banish a few of these peons to locales unknown! Feel the TRUE POWER of Wat!"

A wave of energy washes over the party, but it is not strong enough to affect as many of you as Wat had predicted; in fact, only Kleborn is affected.

Kleborn winks out of existence, as Lareth begins to laugh maniacally. "YOU are the fool, old ghost! These interlopers are NOT my minions, and their lives are NOT precious to me! You want to see true power? BOW TO THE WILL OF THE ELDER EYE, ALL SPIRITS ARE HIS TO COMMAND!"

Wat screams in agony as Lareth holds the red, glowing quarterstaff before him, pointing it in a manner indicative of control.

The scream is brief, and then Wat's next sentence is capitulatory: "Yes, my master."

It is now Teedi's turn. After consulting Sonya, I shall post her actions tomorrow.

Defender of Oerth

Teedi shouts a battle cry, and charges Lareth, who looks very non-plussed to see the trident-wielding amazon hurtling toward him at breakneck speed.

GM:

Teedi = 24 (Hit)
Damage = 1d8+8 = 15 pts.

Teedi thrusts her trident at Lareth, whose smug look of confidence is now gone, as his shield saves him from a blow that would otherwise have skewered him where he stood. He grunts as the force of the blow dents his shield, and numbs his forearm!

Defender of Oerth

By the rules, you have to charge in a straight line, and you have to end your charge as soon as you are within striking range of your enemy.

GM:

You have a clear "line of sight" to charge to, even with the clipped corner in the way. But you would have to end your charge at "X." Your intention was to end your charge at "Y." Not only is position "Y" against the charging rules, but even if I let you charge to that position, Lareth would still get an attack of opportunity on you. DM ADVICE: Just charge to position X; you still get an attack bonus (+2) and then, in subsequent rounds, you and Teedi can make 1-square adjustments in order to get into flanking positions.

MAVET: Is this still what you want to do? If you charge to Position "Y," I will allow it, but you will only get +1 bonus instead of +2, and Lareth will get an attack of opportunity. If he hits you, your charge will end in square "X," and the attack will automatically fail. WHAT DO YOU DO?

Defender of Oerth

At the start of everyone's action, the remainder of the party will need to make Fort saves, DC 16.This is because "Wat" is a Ghost; his appearance is so horrific, it can drain your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution!PCs who make their saves are immune to this effect for a 24 hour period.PCs who fail their saves suffer ability loss, but then they can't be affected again for a 24 hour period.

GM:

Mavet's roll = Natural 1 (Miss)

GM:

Derrith Turn Undead:Turns 3 HD (FAIL)

Mavet charges Lareth, but the Cleric is ready for him, and easily blocks the blow with his shield!